In past elections, campaign week has served as a time of partisan competition. This spring, however, the Ignite Party remains the only registered student political party. / Robert Gill/FSView

Written by

Ross Toback

Staff Writer

Spring campaign week for Florida State’s Student Government kicked off last Wednesday. Although campaigning methods have remained similar, the amount of contested races this year has decreased tremendously.

In last year’s spring election, three student political parties ran candidates on the ballot. Now, the Ignite Party remains the sole party on the ballot. Eight students are running as independents.

Out of 32 positions in SGA, not including Union Board, only five races have opposing candidates. That number is down from last year when 29 positions were contested.

Out of those 29 races, 20 of them had three candidates running against each other.

Last year’s three parties included the Ignite Party, Progress Coalition and Legacy Society Party. With this year only including Ignite and a few Independent candidates, those campaigning now had different opinions on whether it was beneficial or detrimental for FSU’s political climate.

“I guess there wasn’t another political party in the works or felt that they had candidates that could actually,” said Ignite Senior Class Vice President candidate, Matthew Hooper. “It’s a little different feel. I do feel that the more political parties there are, it makes you want to come up with a stronger platform and motivate you to make sure you give it your all but I believe our candidates have a great platform and they’re going to do great things. I could see having that type of competition could make you want to take your word out to the public.”

Although having parties boosts competition and incentive to execute a stronger platform, Ignite candidate for Senior Class President Haylie Collins believes not having so much competition this year is advantageous toward strengthening the Ignite Party.

“I think it’s beneficial because it gives us time to focus on other things internally so we know we’re strong from the inside out,” Collins said. “When there are other parties there is competition so you need to make sure you stay ahead of the game campaigning so I think this will really help the party rebuild itself after last year’s election which was pretty strenuous on everyone.”

Unlike last year when every candidate was backed by one of the three political parties, this year those running as Independents run drastically different campaigns. Ignite party members all put Facebook cover photos announcing their candidacy simultaneously and have people working on their campaign constantly while Independent candidates don’t have those resources available to them without a centralized party.

“I think running against such an established political party is kind of daunting but however I’m confident I’ve established myself within my college and that it’s small enough that by campaigning through personal interactions that I could get enough support to win the election,” said Independent candidate for the School of Communication Seat Mercy Joy Corlew. “Because I’m working by myself, I have to go up against a lot of man power from the political party. I have a few friends that have helped me campaign but they can send out 20 people at any given time to spread their message.”

Independents have also benefited from Ignite Party and the amount of campaigning they do to get the word out about Election Day.

“I don’t really have to campaign that much because Ignite is going out there and doing that for me,” said Independent candidate for Senior Class Council President Brooke Bustle. “They have hundreds of people out their letting people know Election Day is coming up so that portion is covered for me.”

Election Day will take place from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. and students can vote at sga.fsu.edu.